Cracked Head?
 

This is on a cavalier 1988 2.0 4cyl. my oldest stepson ran it with a coolant leak and it over heated. it blew out one of the spark plugs and water was in the combustion chamber. there is no water in the oil. i have the head pulled of but see no visible cracks and the head gasket looked ok. if there was a crack in the block would there be water in the oil and do you think i should just get him to buy a used head and install?

The 4 cylinders in those cars have really crappy heads. There are various casting issues with them, and a lot of the time, if they overheat and blow a head gasket, the head is screwed too. It's definately worth it to have it checked, before just putting it together. I believe someone here the other day was saying that there is a company that makes new castings of those heads, without all the problems.

edit: here is the thread https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...hreadid=262667

Maybe this will help, the engine they are discussing is a different one, but the same type of issues. Hope some of this helps. You may want to try a different site though, cause this thread will probably be locked for being off-topic.